Department of Foods and Nutrition, CCC Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar-125 004, India.
In the present study blending of crude palm oil was done with sunflower oil and groundnut oil to attain ideal fatty acid ratio. CPO was blended with sunflower and groundnut in two different proportions i.e., CPO: sunflower (70:30 and 65:35) and CPO: groundnut (50:50 and 45:55). Fatty acid composition and physico-chemical characteristics of individual oils and their blends were determined. The palmitic acid was the major fatty acid (43.45%) in CPO followed by oleic and linoleic acid. Sunflower oil contained 67.76% polyunsaturated fats, 22.72% monounsaturated and 9.54% saturated fats. On the other hand in groundnut oil, oleic acid was the prominent fatty acid, which was 48.90% of total fatty acid followed by linoleic acid (48.9%), palmitic acid (7.76%) and stearic acid (2.31%). â-carotene content was 366.19 μg/g in CPO; however, no â-carotene was present in sunflower and groundnut oils. Saponification value was highest in CPO and lowest in sunflower oil. Iodine value was lowest in CPO and highest in sunflower oil. No peroxide value was detected in fresh oils. Four types of products namely cake, biscuit, sev and mathi prepared using different oil blends were found acceptable. On the basis of fatty acid composition and physico-chemical characteristics, 70:30 blend of CPO and sunflower was recommended for a vitamin A deficient population. Therefore, popularization of palm oil becomes all the more important in the context of Indian population where vitamin A deficiency is still highly prevalent.
